The American news media has long-been a source of skepticism and derision. At the same time, citizens hold it up as a vital resource for informing the public and holding hose in power accountable. The 2016 presidential election stressed this curious binary in seemingly new and unique ways. Questions of individual or institutional bias (which themselves are problematic) have been supplanted in favor of accusations about “fake news” and the promotion of “alternative facts.” One of the results of this anxious discourse is tat it has reanimated an eternal question:

Does the news media still matter? The answer is more complicated than one would suspect. The news media is a part of American culture in general, as opposed to the primary influence on that culture. This talk will address that current media landscape, historical journalistic precedents and the ways in which the public does and does not use the news.

Free and open to the public at UMaine Hutchinson Center, 80 Belmont Ave., Belfast on July 10th at 7:00pm.

Josh Roiland is an Assistant Professor and CLAS-Honors Preceptor of Journalism in the Department of Communication and Journalism and the Honors College at the University of Maine. He teaches and writes about journalism and democracy, literary journalism and the nonfiction of David Foster Wallace. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, Longreads, Nieman Storyboard and Literary Journalism Studies.